What was it like using certain mood stabilizers or anti-depressants and regretting all the time lost using them once you got your elder off them?

Truth be told, why do you want to know? You haven’t said that you have experience in this, for yourself or your parent. Are you just fishing for ‘bad’ stories to prove some point you want to make about ‘evil’ medications?

Truth be told, my mother was totally miserable before I asked her doctor to put her on an anti depressant. Once she started taking Wellbutrin, she started cooking again, sleeping, talking, smiling, functioning, leaving her apartment with dad, and living life again.

I had the same experience myself with Paxil. I went from an anxiety ridden wreck back to a functional human again, thank God, in pretty short order.

In retrospect, the only way I could've achieved better results from the start was if I'd gone to my doctor sooner and asked for help with my crushing anxiety and PTSD.

In a great many cases, medication is the only viable solution for mood and depression disorders and there's no shame or issue in admitting that, and asking your doctor for medical advice on the matter. If the doctor has what he or she feels is a better solution to your issue than medication, it can be discussed at your appointment in private.

It’s not as if antidepressants make you comatose. You don’t lose any time on them.

Not sure there is any way to know.

Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

The question is sort of like asking "Do you regret taking medication for diabetes when other solutions achieved better results?" You don't know if other solutions will achieve results unless you try them....or those other solutions may kill you.

Time lost? How about regretting the years of miserable soul crushing depression culminating in horrendous and frankly dangerous PPD because I "don't like pills". We all make mistakes but you won't catch me suggesting depressed people avoid antidepressants any more than you'll find me telling people to surgically remove their own pacemakers.

this is a question relating to a very specific scenario but leaves out a lot of detail. and is something i've never heard of happening. i don't know anyone who regrets use of mood stabilizers. are you referring to yourself or for a parent you're taking care of?